


System, The Host Forgot Her Mission!

by LScore



Series: System, The Host... [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Comedy, F/M, Framing Story, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I swear this has a point, Romance, Temporary Character Death, The Author Regrets Nothing, kind of an isekai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LScore/pseuds/LScore
Summary: Uchiha Sakura didn't know what she expected the afterlife to look like, but she didn't expect it to include a little white fox calling itself her "guide" and complaining to a "system" about her. Transmigration? Granny Meng's Soup? What do you mean she has six more lifetimes to live? And what is this about her "mission"? Sakura's about to find out!
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Series: System, The Host... [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1736473
Comments: 11
Kudos: 22





	System, The Host Forgot Her Mission!

**Author's Note:**

> I do not have any commercial rights to the Naruto franchise and make no profit from this work.

Her last thought in this lifetime was that she would’ve liked to see him one more time.

Sarada, her grown grandchildren, and even her newest great-grandson had been there, bravely trying to hold onto their smiles. Most of their old friends had already shuffled off the mortal coil - that was the advantage of being a medical-nin - but their children had come by to pay their respects. She’d been well-cared for in her last days, staying at the hospital where she once worked, surrounded by many of the students she’d taught herself. It was a good way to end her life. 

Some called it the end of an era. They’d all forgotten about him. It’d been so long since he’d come home.

Sarada had begged her to let her go look for him and bring him back. Sakura had refused. Sasuke had always been like this. Sarada had cried for the last time. Sakura had asked her not to hate her father, but she knew her daughter never would.

It was enough, for her.

In this world, Sakura Uchiha closed her eyes for the last time.

***

“Host, how long do you plan on being asleep for!” The soul that had been Sakura Haruno opened her eyes with a start when an extremely annoying, overly chirpy voice shouted in her ear. It came from a tiny white fox, fluffy and adorable with sharp eyes and a little bell on its collar sitting on her chest, and when Sakura bolted upright in surprise, it tumbled into her lap.

“Host, please be more gentle!” The little white fox scolded as it daintily picked itself up, “If you break me, the almighty guide, the consequences will be dire! Hmph!”

Sakura ignored it because she was too busy trying to figure out _where the hell she actually was! Shannaro! I thought I was dead! Is this what the afterlife looks like?_

She was sitting on a plush white seat that looked like a recliner crossed with a throne, in the center of several neon pink-tinted screens hovering in space surrounding her. All of them, except for the tiny one in the corner, had data scrolling by faster than she could read. The tiny one just had one number on it: 6.

Sakura, genius ninja, she of the eidetic memory and incredible talent in her past life, had just one very intelligible thing to say: “Huh?”

“Oh no,” the little fox groaned, “Don’t tell me you forgot the mission! Granny Meng’s soup is supposed to wear off once you enter the lobby subspace!”

“Mission?” Sakura repeated, still not understanding. _Granny Meng’s Soup? Lobby Subspace? Do we speak the same language?_

“Yes, the mission! The-” The agitated little fox broke off when all the screens in front of her turned blank and just flashed one big letter.

C.

“C?!” the small creature squealed so loudly that Sakura clapped her hands over her ears. “Oh come on! I know the female lead did a rotten job, but a C? That’s too low!” It turned on Sakura and began to lecture her, “You see, that’s what happens when you choose a bad world to get plopped into, you nearly fail your mission! As I thought, next time I’m choosing the world!”

“Hey!” Sakura objected unhappily, “First of all, please explain to me what the hell is going on. Who are you, where am I, and what the heck is going on!? Then, we can talk about this so-called failed missions, because I don’t fail missions.”

The little fox, who by now was floating in front of her face, put her snout into her tiny paws and groaned, “ This is just great. My luck is so bad, urgh. A Host who nearly fails her mission, doesn’t remember what it is, and forgets her almighty guide? We might as well just give up on the next six lives altogether.”

“I am this close to losing my patience with you,” Sakura growled, resisting the urge to strangle the little drama queen.

“System, please display all host data on main screen. I’m too lazy to explain it myself,” The white fox who called itself her guide waved one paw listlessly. 

_Some guide it is_. Sakura thought resentfully, then turned to study the information that flashed onto the main screen.

 **Host:** Haruno Sakura  
**Original World:**???  
**Role:** Female Lead  
**Mission:** To Romance the Male Lead  
**Success Condition:** Achieve an S-rank. From lowest to highest, possible passing ranks are D, C, B, A, and S. If a rank of F is achieved, the mission will be failed and host will ???  
**Reward:** ???  
**Guide:**???  
**Special Status Conditions:** Will instantly fall in love with the Male Lead when encountered  
**Remaining Lifetimes:** 6

 _Achieve an S-rank? Host will ??? This is not helpful!_ Sakura scowled as she processed this ridiculous information, _What’s with this stupid mission?_ She then realized something and turned to the so-called guide. “How was the last lifetime I lived only a C-rank?! If this so-called Male Lead was Sasuke-kun, we ended up together! We even got married and had a kid!”

“I’m just your guide, lady. I don’t know what the rubric is. My job is to handle the narrative,” The little fox shrugged, “System decided you get a C. I gotta say, considering your Male Lead left you to raise your kid alone and wasn’t even there when you passed away, I don’t disagree.”

The memories of her past life stung her heart. “I did my best, okay?” Sakura muttered, “I didn’t have that much to work with. Besides, love isn’t that important! I helped save the world, and I helped a lot of people…”

“Romance. the. male. lead,” The little white fox patted one paw emphatically on the screen, emphasizing every word. “You can read, right? I thought you were supposed to be a genius. Love is literally the most important thing for you.”

“Well, if you were supposed to handle the narrative, why’d the narrative drag my… what do you call him? Male Lead?” Sakura thought the title was stupid, but when in Rome... “Why’d the narrative drag him away?”

The arrogant little fox actually wilted a bit, “I did what I could, okay? I’m a guide, not a god.”

“Some guide you are,” Sakura muttered resentfully.

That maligned guide instantly bristled and hissed at her, “It’s your fault for picking such a crap world to begin with! That was your choice, not mine. So next time, let me do my job and pick the damn world.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Sakura retorted, “What if I just want to, I don’t know, rejoin the cycle of reincarnation or something?”

“You don’t have a choice!” The Guide responded cheerfully, spreading its little paws wide.

That made Sakura shut her mouth. For the first time, she took a closer look around her and saw… nothing. She couldn’t see anything beyond the pink screens around her. It was just a void that seemed both very close and to stretch into infinity. The feeling that it was supposed to make her feel claustrophobic was more disturbing than the actual feeling of claustrophobia.

She looked down at her own hands. Instead of the gnarled joints and papery skin she’d gotten used to towards the end of life, her hands were young and her skin was translucent, so translucent she looked like she was glowing. When she reached out to touch something, anything, her hand passed through the screen.

“Am I a ghost?” Sakura wondered.

“Ghosts haunt their original world, and spirits rejoin the cycle of life,” The little white fox rolled its eyes at her, as if the question she was asking had an obvious answer that even a five-year-old would know, “You can do neither. You are a host. You’re destined to wander worlds, with your trusty guide, of course! That’s me, in case you haven’t figured it out yet.”

“So I’m just supposed to… what, pop into a different world?”

“Transmigrate,” The little fox corrected her, “The proper term is transmigrate into another world. Although if we’re being totally technical, considering you have to drink Granny Meng’s soup before you go in, I’m not sure if it’s a proper transmigration, but whatever.”

“Granny Meng’s soup?” Sakura frowned.

“Of forgetfulness,” The little fox added helpfully, then blinked at the baleful look Sakura gave it, “What?”

“You’re telling me I have to live six more lifetimes to maybe accomplish a mission I won’t remember until after I die, and that I’ll instantly fall in love with the guy when I see him?” Sakura wanted to bang her head on something. _Who came up with this idiotic plot?_

“Well when you put it that way, it does seem like a bit of a dogs blood plot…” The little white fox muttered. It hastily explained when it saw the baleful look Sakura leveled at it, “Look, I’ll help you get everything in place in the narrative, you just need to be your charming self, okay? Don’t try so hard, relax, and trust the story.”

Sakura sighed. After one abnormally long lifetime, she was so _tired_. For some reason, staying awake here, wherever she was, was sapping her energy as well. She resigned herself to her fate, whatever the heck it was. Maybe she’d close her eyes and wake up back in her bed when she was ten or something stupid like that. At least she wouldn’t be here anymore.

“Can you at least give me a cuddlier male lead this time around?” She asked, half-jokingly, half-seriously. As cute as those forehead pokes had been, Sakura wanted hugs, dammit. Skin contact! Actually, she’d settle for a significant other that was actually _there_.

“No guarantees!” The little fox grinned.

Sakura wished she had the energy to roll her eyes, but she just said instead, “Alright. Tell me what I’m supposed to do,”.

“Now that’s the right attitude!” Her so-called guide said chirpily, “Just drink the soup, and leave the rest to me.”

For some reason, Sakura was reminded of young Naruto, but the hazy memory was dispersed when a bowl of clear soup appeared in front of her. She picked it up in her insubstantial hands and lifted it to her lips. The little guide waved a paw in front of the screen, and an image of a young couple appeared on the screen, one that Sakura remembered from her previous life. The woman was obviously pregnant. As she drank the soup of forgetfulness, she started to feel sleepy again, and the guide’s chirpy voice became more and more muffled in her ears.

“For now, all you have to do is be born and do your best. This narrative will start on the day that you pretend to be a fake couple with the male lead on a dating show. Have fun!”

Just as Sakura’s eyes closed again, this time for birth instead of death, she choked. _Fake couple? Dating show? What the heck did I get myself into?_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm either a genius or I'm insane. Maybe both. But well, it started with a need to write shipper fluff while ATSiD is doing its proper slow burn thing, my apparent inability to come up with ideas except modern AUs, and I ended up with this crazy idea. This is part of a frame story for a series of fics that will follow - so look forward to what my brain (which admittedly might be drunk on Chinese light novels) will churn out. Please look forward to The Words I Want to Hear, coming this weekend!


End file.
